I'm a scientist and an educator. And occasionally, I want to say things that I shouldn't say in front of the students. So, here I am.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Anxiety

Last night, teaching anxiety dominated my dreams. Showing up late to class. Not having enough copies of my syllabus. Students out of control. General lack of preparedness. Missing a class altogether.

Sigh.

Every semester, I have nightmares before school starts. During the day, I look forward to getting back into the classroom again. I'll be teaching my community college students about the solar system and I get to torment university students with physics! Sounds like fun to me. And last semester, I had a great crop of students, but each semester involves new people and new challenges. Will they like me? Will I like them? Will I do a good job?